


Sing for Me

by EstherA2J



Category: Tangled (2010)
Genre: Crying, Declarations Of Love, Dysfunctional Family, Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Singing, Single Parents, Tea, Tea and Sympathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-24
Updated: 2014-05-24
Packaged: 2018-01-26 09:02:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1682615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EstherA2J/pseuds/EstherA2J
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your empty words are swept away like broken dreams, traded in for tea and sympathy. I grieve for things that could never be. It’s all offkey.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sing for Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [EHWIES](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=EHWIES).



_For the Reviews Lounge, Too 2014 Spring Fic Exchange. A gift for EHWIES._

♪

For a second that stretches into emptiness, I feel weightless. Then the floor rushes up to meet me, and all the breath leaves my lungs in a sudden, painful gush. Lying still, splayed across the tiles, I struggle to breathe, my feet still tangled in the soft strands that tossed me here. Tears fill my eyes as I raise my head. “Please, Mother, may I cut it?”

Horror twists her face, and anger, gone so quickly I may have imagined it. “Oh, my dear.” Her gentle hands lift me and pull me into her lap as she seats herself in the rocking chair. “Do you see this?” She extricates a lock of hair from behind my ear, holding up a hand mirror before me. I nod. It is the colour of the wooden stairs after I’ve scrubbed them, glimmering with a richer light than the shimmering sungold I am used to. “When you were a baby,” Mother continues, “people tried to cut your hair. They wanted its power for themselves.” She sighs. “But it lost its power as soon as it was cut.”

I rub the brown strands between my fingers. They feel the same as the gold; if I closed my eyes, I would never know the difference.

Mother threads her fingers through the glistening strands that entangle my feet and ankles, unwinding them. “A gift like yours must be protected, my flower. Now, let’s have a song.”

♪♫♪

My eyes widen in horror as I watch the delicate china cup slip from my fingers, and it feels as if the world slows down around me, like the air has become thicker somehow. I reach out toward the cup where it spins through a slanting beam of spring sunshine, but I am not fast enough, and it hits the floor in a tiny explosion, fragments of painted porcelain spilling across the tiles.

I slowly raise my eyes to meet Mother’s gaze, afraid of what she’ll say, but she only laughs and clucks her tongue, shaking her head at the shattered shards. “It’s only a cup, my flower. Easily swept up.” She tucks a bit of hair behind my ear and smiles, her fingers lingering in the sunny strands. “I love you so much, my dear.”

“I love you more.” Our familiar wordplay brings a smile to my face.

“I love you most.” She bends and kisses the top of my head. “Now, get the broom. I’ll make us some tea, and you can sing for me.”

♪♫♪

My head is like a floating lantern. The bitter dregs of loss drift away, my tears an unrehearsed symphony of hope, of freedom. A whisper on the wind, a shadow of the past; never to ask again: “Sing for me.”

♫


End file.
